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From the Deckplates - We Can Never Do Too Much

Servicemen and women are facing increased pressures to continue their military careers. The drawdown in Iraq, the coming drawdown in Afghanistan, and efforts to constrain growth of the Department of Defense budget are leading to lower end-strength authorizations. These events are occurring while the armed forces are experiencing record retention because more servicemembers are clinging to the security of a military career over the uncertainty of civilian life in a struggling economy.

Lower personnel requirements and higher retention have resulted in force-shaping efforts to meet end-strength ceilings. Those efforts have led to—and will continue to—the forced separation of thousands of officers and enlisted personnel. The enlisted force, with less income and generally less education, is bearing the brunt of these initiatives.

We all can understand the difficulty some leaders have faced in deciding on forced separation, but we cannot appreciate the impact on our troops and their families. Not only are many struggling with being pushed out of careers they love, they are being cast into the turbulent sea of transition to civilian life in a rocky economy. We must do more to calm the seas.

Many transition services are available to separating veterans, and some have been expanded for those being forced out, but we can never do enough. The military departments and Congress should act swiftly to expand services to veterans facing separation because of personnel limitations. We also should remember that the vast majority of sailors not selected for continued service by the recent Enlisted Retention Board volunteered to serve during wartime, having enlisted after 9/11. They agreed to go in harm’s way if ordered, aware that such service was likely. To them we owe a debt of gratitude, and even more so to those who actually served in combat but still may be forced to separate.

There are several actions the services and Congress can take to help ease the transition for veterans who have served honorably—many that truly meet the “sustained superior performance” standard and most of the others with minor, one-time lapses—but are being forced from their careers.

First, our veterans deserve the transparency the current administration promised, which should include career-ending actions. Sailors being forced from the Navy are given absolutely no information about why they were not selected for continuation. While the administrative burden for recording and reporting these decisions would be heavy, it’s the very least we owe sailors facing a much heavier, life-altering burden.

Second, they should be granted continued access to exchanges and commissaries. These facilities operate at a small but positive profit, so expanding access costs nothing. Any fears of overcrowding are belied by fewer active-duty beneficiaries using the stores.

Third, access to healthcare in military treatment facilities should be extended past the current 180-day post-separation entitlement for those separating without retirement benefits. Access should be granted for the earlier: 12 months or when the veteran secures employment offering health insurance. This benefit comes with a cost, but it is offset by less manpower resulting from the drawdown and could be further reduced with a minimal policy cost or co-pay after the already approved limit.

The most important aspect of a successful transition—especially for veterans separating unexpectedly and without benefits—is securing gainful employment. Servicemembers separated through force-shaping efforts should be given some hiring priority for federal positions to assist in this endeavor and their qualifications should be scrubbed against all existing federal openings to expedite their employment.

The need to reduce the federal budget and find personnel cost savings is hard to argue against, but veterans should not be punished in the process. The financial savings realized by service-downsizing efforts create hardships for many veterans. Some of those savings can and should be postponed so we can do more for those who served honorably but are being involuntarily forced to end their military careers.

We can never do too much for those who served our nation, and we must ease their transition to civilian life, especially when that transition is forced on them.

Senior Chief Murphy transferred to the Fleet Reserve in 2008 after 21 years of active duty. He served his entire career in the cryptologic community and was a qualified submariner.